Tom Beaulieu

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to speak about the core housing needs across the Northwest Territories. At this time, over two years into this government, there is no territorial-wide housing plan that addresses the core need reduction plan on a community-by-community basis.

Mr. Speaker, I have risen in this House many times urging our government to create a housing development plan that is pertinent to each of our 33 communities and is comprehensive enough to identify the exact types of core needs that are most pertinent within each community. A thorough plan can better...

I can provide that information that the Minister is asking for. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister what the target is for core need? Across the country, the core needs levels are at about 12 per cent. We in the Northwest Territories always sit at about 20 per cent, so after years and years of putting $100 million a year into housing, we're still at 20 per cent across the territory, and we haven't moved from there. I don't know, maybe we've gone up, maybe we've gone down, I don't know what has happened since 2014; there is no new survey to indicate that. So I'd like to ask the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I spoke of the core needs for housing for the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation if there will be a plan to reduce core need presented to the Assembly in the near future. Thank you.

One of the main things that the Housing Corporation is trying to prevent with the new program is, obviously, the potential for a huge environmental disaster, as we have seen situations where we have leaking tanks that have cost $250,000 to remediate, because it takes quite a hole to get the fuel out of the ground.

In my case, there is hardly anyone that can afford to actually pay for the costs of a full remediation if they have a complete failure with their fuel tank. Therefore, it could involve moving a home and so on and so forth. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister would have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation some questions on the new program, the fuel tank program. I think that is a very good program. It is good for the environment and very good for, even, insurance purposes.

I would like to ask the Minister if, in communities where most of the heavy materials are brought in by barge, if the Minister could, in advance, in communities that are barged in, particularly Lutselk'e, of course, for my riding, if the Housing Corporation would send several tanks into Lutselk'e in preparation to exchange...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I am going to give my elder constituents in my community a bit of an update on what I am going to be doing from now until we come back into the House again on May 24th. Today, I am going to attempt again, for the second time, to do the majority of my statement in my language. [English translation not provided.] Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Chairman rise and report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister for that response. Mr. Speaker, we have situations where individuals are beginning to discover the reason why they have the program, and that is because those older tanks do fail after a certain number of years. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister could look at the possibility of helping individuals out where there is no tank in the community to install and they have a leak. It will take potentially a couple of weeks, because most likely, in situations like Lutselk'e, you would have to fly the tank in. Could the NWT...

In many of the communities, we don't have private tradespeople. I would like to ask the Minister, in situations where there may be an inventory of tanks, and we have a tank failure that may be urgent or an emergency situation, if the Minister can work through the system and have the housing authorities' maintenance staff change the tanks at the community level?

Marci cho Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the interpreters from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, Mr. Tom Unka from Fort Resolution, and Rose Sundberg from Detah.